Snapchat's new design finally separates business and pleasure

Snapchat has unveiled a redesigned app that will now emphasize personalization while also creating greater separation between social interactions among friends and content from its media partners.

The page previously included Stories shared by friends alongside content from Discover, Snapchat's hub for media partners like The Daily Mail and BuzzFeed. This changes how most of the content is shown to users and also includes some new features.

Snap announced details on Wednesday about the upcoming redesign to its flagship app, which will start rolling out to some users later this week.

Spiegel has taken pains since going public to present his strategy as unique and not directly comparable to Facebook, which has seven times as many users and has copied some of Snapchat's most-popular features. From the camera screen, you can swipe to the left to see your friends and to the right to see the new Discover tab. What co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel means by this is a not-so-veiled shot at the Facebook News Feed, which has become an unappealing stew of sponsored posts, branded videos, misleading news stories and - tucked somewhere in between all of that - a few updates from your actual friends.

NEW YORK CITY, NY- March 2, 2017: Snapchat'sSnap Inc. makes IPO debut on the New York Stock Exchange NYSE.

"This secret is hiding in plain sight" was about a calculator app that hides nude photos on your phone, while "Gucci Mane's new hair has the internet shrieking" covered the rapper's new $500 haircut and "These Celebs get REAL about losing their virginity" featured Joe Jonas and others discussed having sex for the first time.

So how does Snap know who's a friend, and who's a brand?

With Snapchat's new redesign, the company is betting that users want intimacy versus popularity

Snap is attempting to make the latter aspect a core piece of its value proposition as opposed to a band-aid fix by vetting all professionally-produced content on its platform in-house.

Back in April, we wrote that Snap was shooting itself in the foot by not putting your best friends' Stories first like Instagram does, rather than highlighting the most recently posted Stories which emphasized oversharers you might not care about. The company now has a "best friends" algorithm that puts the people you engage with most at the top of your feed; the redesigned feed expands that to rank all of your friends by closeness.

Until now, social media has always mixed photos and videos from your friends with content from publishers and creators.

Importantly, Snapchat is bringing back Stories auto-advance, but with a twist. Ultimately, the people you talk to the most should be easier to contact. The more you chat with someone and watch their stories, the higher in the feed they will rise.

How often do you useSnapchat? That way you can swipe down to exit out before you watch it (which friends can see in their analytics), or swipe over to skip to the next preview.

Snap also debuted a what it calls a more dynamic version of the Friends page that pushes content from close friends to the top. Snapsaid it would release unspecified new tools to help creators profit from their work on the platform.

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